This volume is motivated by a clear rationaleâthe need to think with and through the question of the oppositions generated by the constructs of âEastâ and âWestâ and to call up the discourses and practices that have laid claim to these oppositions or ignited these antinomies. Although the binary formulation of âEast-Westâ is neither a new nor an under-studied concept in the humanities, and has been much contested, there is a necessity, as we move into the third decade of the twenty-first century, to pay attention to the academic and political dynamics that can emanate from an interest in what Walter Mignolo calls âthe enduring enchantment of oppositionsâ (Mignolo 2002, p. 927), and their naturalising and hierarchic bias, from alternative but still interlinked sites of scholarly production and dissemination. Reorienting the locus of debate and discussion âeastwardsâ, to locally-bound scholarship and contexts of critical analyses that are also responsive to and engage with metropolitan articulations and knowledge practices, serves to break down the persistence of the overwrought distinctions between âEastâ and âWestâ , while also bringing to light theoretical and methodological positions, concerns, and emphases from the post-colony. As co-editor, I am very much aware of the politics of location and the struggle to be able to define, on our own terms, those spaces and places that we inhabit and ideological positions that we take with reference to receiving, (re)theorising, and contributing to knowledge construction in our respective contexts. As Joan Borsa points out, âwhere we live, how we live, our relation to the social systems and structures that surround us [âŠ] remain integral both to our identity or sense of self and to our position or status within a larger representational fieldâ (Borsa 1990, p. 36).
Central then to this bookâs concerted inquiries into identity , memory , and culture while rethinking narratives of âEast and West â, centre, and marginality is the question of representation. It is worth keeping in mind that representation is never a neutral or non-partisan exercise that takes place in a space devoid of power relations. Whether as place or cultural location, concrete reality or imaginative geography, âEastâ and âWestâ have mainly been invoked as legitimizing procedures in the capitalist-colonial and imperialist imperative for power creation and consolidation through the control of knowledge. They serve as ways to talk about the agency of domination, specifically with reference to how and for what purpose the Self invents its Other. For centuries, and especially since the European Enlightenment, cultures and ideologies have tacitly accepted the valorised dichotomy between âEastâ and âWestâ , and have incorporated various âessencesâ into the patterns of representation used to describe them. The âEastâ has been commonly associated with the sinisterâwith âviolenceâ and âirrationalityââand the âWestâ with the benevolence of the âcivilizedâ world.
The damage at the level of representationâthe objectifications, passive constructions, stereotypesâhas given rise to cultural and power inequalities and hierarchies, which in turn have worked to reinforce these differences. The complex interconnectivities of culture and geopolitics necessitated by and through globalisation have paradoxically exacerbated these inequalities and power dynamics, reshaping our communities and their borderlines, realigning our affiliations, and undermining past solidarities and connected histories.
In the aftermath of Edward Said âs groundbreaking work, Orientalism (1978), which demonstrated the ways in which imperial and colonial hegemony is deeply implicated in discursive and textual productions, these debates continue to raise the important questionsâhow do we perceive those different from us? What are the rhetorical strategies, narrative modes, tropes , discursive formations, spatial metaphors, and procedures of labelling that have been mobilised in processes of naming and othering? What are the effects of such representations? How can critical knowledge from the humanities contribute to the elaboration of strategies for more dialogic and inclusive processes of East-West interaction?
The salience of these and other related questions in an age marked by the unprecedented global flows of capital, labour, technology, knowledge, and affect as well as its highly complex concatenation of fears and desires is that, while framing any argument in the dichotomous terms of âEast and West â is highly problematic, the global flows connecting âEastâ and âWestâ remain uneven and unequal. Hegemony still prevails. As Jacques Derrida pointed out in his analysis of the post-Cold War world, globalization is âmore inegalitarian and violent than everâ (Derrida 2005, p. 155). The need then for the continued dismantling of the hegemonies engendered by the oppositional categories of âEastâ and âWestâ becomes more crucial, especially if we are to gain a critical understanding of the complex challenges and complicities that globalization creates or replicates in relation to issues of identity , culture, and power.
To address this task, and aware of the representational power of literature to interpret, question, and critique our received understanding of cultures, offer new imaginings, advance human empathy , and capture moments of solidarity and alliance, this volume brings together scholars of comparative literature and literary and cultural studies who come from a wide range of positions and concerns. Collectively, they explore and unpack written and visual inscriptions of âEast and West â from different geographical contexts and historical or temporal periods, ranging from Victorian travel narratives, ancient and contemporary Chinese literature, Korean , Indian, British Asian, and Asian American literatures that encompass diverse genres such as literary fiction, travel writing , film, poetry, the graphic novel, and visual artwork. Providing close and inspired readings of their texts, our contributing authors, who comprise both established and emerging scholars, engage, through the wide range of their interpretative material, some of the most pressing problems, as well as possibilities, surrounding issues of local or national/global identity , culture, and powerâthe writing of history, cultural translation, the marginal spaces inhabited by immigrants, the institutionalising imperative of the nation-state including issues of canon formation , the recuperative power of memory , nationalist silencing, the racialization of subjects and the other ways in which âEast and West â and its multifarious effects and repercussions in society are being framed, propagated, glorified, or contested. Rather than subsuming issues of identity , culture, memory , and hegemony under a framework of Western domination and Eastern resistance or offering a mode of thinking that merely critiques the effects of colonialism and imperialism , our contributors mobilise âEastâ and âWestâ to enable a more critical, creative, and heterogeneous exploration of their construction, reformulation, and consequence.
In place of a simple rejection of the East-West relationship, Literature, Memory, Hegemony : East/ West Crossings turns to âEast and West â in search of those moments of encounter, collision, and transformation in which the use of this paradigm as a reference point is contextually meaningful and open to new meanings and possibilities. Indeed, the trope of âcrossings â in the sub-title of the collection points to the inherent instability of âEast and West â as oppositional categories. For one thing, the âEastâ is to be found in the âWestâ, and the âWestâ in the âEastâ.
Thus, instead of presenting simplified readings of âEastâ and âWestâ as divided halves in terms of space, place, and constructions of cultural and national identity in relation to the local/global nexus, the critical perspectives presented in this volume draw attention to the solidus between âEastâ and âWestâ as the site for the negotiation of meaning. The insertion of the solidus in place of the hyphen is not to mark the social, cultural, and psychic gap between the terms, with âEastâ and âWestâ existing as separate from and autonomous of each other, thereby working to fix and further stabilize meaning. Rather, the solidus can more usefully be thought of as a line that divides but is also permeable. 1 Reconfigured this way, âEast/Westâ exceeds fixed boundaries, existing instead in those unsettled spaces where narratives are inhabited, intersect, clash, cooperate, and are transformed. These liminal spacesâphysical and imagined, local and global, past and presentâprovide fresh opportunities for explorations of identity , culture, history, memory , nation, and forms of representation.
Informed by these broad concerns but also paying careful attention to the particularities of their individual texts and their historical, social, and cultural contexts, the chapters that follow broadly cohere around four thematic or methodological approaches as outlined below. Although appearing under one of these broad headings, each of the chapters centres on a distinct or particularized aspect of the East/West experience or critical poetics and reflects an awareness of cultural interaction, exchange, or transformation, engaging readers in a richly productive conversation concerning the interconnectedness, however tenuous, of border crossings in their discrepant forms.
Comparative and Cross-Cultural Approaches
Although the book primarily problematizes East-West oppositions in matters of culture, ideology, and identity , due attention is also given to showing how a comparative perspective that derives from the East/West paradigm can be deployed to productively explore areas of overlap and difference in Eastern and Western traditions of translation and comparative studies. By enacting dialogue between the various traditions, rather than presenting them in terms of traditional polarities or subsuming them under monolithic concepts of universal values , the book aims to contribute toward a reshaping of our understanding of East/West as a space of cross-cultural encounter and reciprocal learning.
In search of âunexpected affinitiesâ, Nicholas Pagan mobilises the model of the âliterary mindâ to bring East and West into dialogue with each other. By juxtaposing a sixth-century text, WĂȘn Hsin Tiao Lung (The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons), a work of literary criticism and theory of literature by Chinese philosopher Liu Hsieh , and a more recent text, The Literary Mind (1996), by American cognitive scientist and linguist Mark Turner , he demonstrates these thinkersâ contrasting ideas on the interplay between âmindâ, âlanguageâ, and âliteratureâ. Placing what he shows to be Turnerâs more instrumental view of the literary mind alongside what he argues is Liu Hsieh âs less didactic view, Pagan is able to conclude that there might be much that English-language linguistics and modern Western cognitive science can learn from ancient Chinese thought and precepts of literature.
The added salience of his contribution is that Pagan situates his connected discussions of Liu Hsieh and Turnerâs texts within the rubric of âworld literatureâ and with particular reference to Goetheâs insight that the goal is for all national literatures to be open to both correcting and learning from the foreign or non-national other. By bringing to light the productive othernesses lurking between linguistic and philosophical systems, Pagan attempts to develop a critique that, in line with the aims of this book, suggests a critical reorientation for dealing with the cultural complexities of contemporary âworld f(r)ictionâ.
To draw our attention to other East/West meeting points and solidarities, Mustapha Bala Ruma turns to compare two principal types of âEasternâ and âWesternâ mystical experienceâSufism and English Romanticism. By means of this comparative methodology and the mutual referencing it makes possible, and by explaining the individual and distinctive features of one type by those of the other, our understanding of both movements as conjunctural or connected phenomena becomes discernible. Among his other insights, Ruma shows how, like Romanticism, Sufism was also a revolt against the dominant ideology of the time.
Although prevailing comparative studies of âEast and West â have largely focused on the apparent inspirational and aspirational similarities between Romanticism and the Sufi literary tradition, Rumaâs chapter, as well as Paganâs, by effectively putting into dialogue two seemingly disparate literary or cultural traditions, pushes against linguistic and geographic categories of difference and binary histories that limit our understanding of cultural production, mutual reciprocity, and exchange.
Transnational Orient(ations) and Empires
While geographical boundaries of the âOrientâ have shifted throughout history, the idea of the âOriental otherâ has remained more or less unchanged. Tomoe Kumojima takes a longer view than most other contributors by examining previously neglected manifestations of cross-cultural affinity in Western representations of the East in European travel productions of the early twentieth century. This was also the time when the âFar Eastâ (usually meaning China, Japan, and K...
